


Coffee and Show Tunes

by digitalmyth



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: AU where the apotheosis never happened, Fluff, Henry is Ted's Bisexual awakening because honestly thats canon at this point, Henry is dramatic, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Light Angst, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Ted is an asshole, What else did you expect? - Freeform, Workin' Boys is probably gonna be mentioned, and also, because why not?, but later, i really hope i actually finish this lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18375536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalmyth/pseuds/digitalmyth
Summary: If you told Ted a month ago that the over dramatic and kinda annoying biology professor he just met would end up being a good friend of his- well he would probably laugh in your face and say something like "yeah fucking right"- but here he is at 12am not being able to sleep because he is worrying his ass of about how that very same professor seems to be getting thinner and look more and more worn out each time they meet. Its probably nothing, or its the stress of teaching people like Emma- well, thats what he tells himself every time. Its also probably not something to do with him.. right?





	Coffee and Show Tunes

**Author's Note:**

> oh wow so I'm finally posting this?? uh first off thank you for 300 on tumblr like damn thats defiantly a lot more than i thought i would get lmao. also i apologise for how shite this is and i also apologise in advance if i never finish it- anyway yeah i hope you like the first chapter!!

Ted was up earlier than he usually would be on his day off, purely for the reason that the lady who lived next to him thought 8am was the perfect time to start loudly mowing the lawn that was pretty much right outside Ted’s bedroom window.

After awhile of laying in bed contemplating if life in jail for murder was a reasonable option, he decided to get dressed and go get a coffee from Beanies- even though their coffee was pretty shit, it would be better than lying here doing fuck all.

After throwing on some clothes and clambering into his car, he began to drive the short distance into the middle of downtown- yeah he could’ve easily walked but fuck that he was lazy.

Soon enough he pulled up in his car in front of Beanies and slid out of the drivers seat before he stumbled over to the door. He waked into the basically deserted café, the small bell above the door chiming as he blundered through it.

“Why are _you_ here this early?”

Ted looked up to see the one and only Emma Perkins leaning on the counter and peering at him with a raised eyebrow. The man wandered over to the barista with a heavy sigh,

“My next door neighbour is a bitch.” He said with a grimace, Emma nodded as she stood up straight and stretched.

“Well it doesn’t take much for you to think someone’s a bitch so that isn’t so hard to believe,” she shrugged.

“Yeah yeah alright,” Ted mumbled as he pulled out his credit card, “just make me an iced latte,” 

“Sure thing your highness,” Emma grunted as she punched in his order and let him pay, she then turned around and knocked a stack of small size cups onto the floor with her elbow.

“Oh fucking hell,” she groaned as she began to pick them up, “could this day get any fuckin’ worse?” She muttered to herself as she stacked the cups back up- not even caring if they were dirty at this point.

Ted furrowed his brows at the brunette, “are you good?” He questioned, resulting in a laugh from Emma.

“Oh I’m doing just fantastic- because I was meant to hand in my biology paper 3 days ago but I hadn’t finished it yet so I told my professor and he let me have an extension because we’re cool right? And it’s due today so I was going to drop it to him after work but now of course fuckin’ _ZoEy_ is sick so I have to stay longer to help out so now I can’t hand in my fucking paper!” She finished her rant with a noise of frustration as she hit the coffee machine with her fist so it would rattle to life.  
Ted snorted as he looked down at his phone which he had pulled out halfway through Emma’s life story.  
“Man I would not like to be in your situation-“ he jumped when Emma slammed her hand down on the counter down next to Ted and glared at him before her eyebrows suddenly raised and Ted could nearly see the lightbulb above her head.

“Oh- Oh! Shit wait-“ she held up a finger in Ted’s face as she quietly thought something over before turning back to the man who just had a look of confusion and boredom mixed on his face.

“I wish I didn’t have to ask this,” Emma said as she quickly finished Ted’s drink and put it down in front of him before took in a sharp breath.

“Alright?” Ted picked up his drink and took a sip through the straw as he looked back down at his phone.

“Ted could you please drop my paper off to my professor?” She blurted out with a forced smile that looked like it had about 20 hours of pain and suffering behind it.

“Do I have to?” Ted whined slightly as he looked up at the barista. Emma responded with a pained sigh.

“Please Ted- I really need to get this in on time,” 

Ted tapped the side of his cup with his finger for about 10 seconds as he thought it over before caving.

“Yeah. Alright- fine. I’ll drop off your shitty paper,” Ted was an asshole but he wasn’t that much of an asshole that he wanted Emma to fail her class.

“Oh thank fuck,” Emma tipped her head back with a happy sigh before she turned and rushed to the back room only to emerge 10 seconds later with a light grey binder under her arm.

She held it out to Ted who forced a smile at her before taking it and looking down at the big fancy gold letters that simply said ‘be unstoppable’- he chuckled.

“How inspirational,”

“Shut the fuck up it was on sale and I’m broke,” Emma retorted right as they both heard the bell above the door ringing and a couple entered the café. Ted slipped the binder under his arm before looking at Emma.

“Text me the address of your professors place or something,” he shrugged- Emma nodded with a slight smile.

“Thanks by the way- I owe you,” she said to him as the brunette turned to leave,

“I’ll hold you to that!” He threw up a quick peace sign before swinging the door open and walking back to his car.

He climbed into the driving seat with a yawn as he threw the folder down onto the seat next to him, he sat there for awhile while he drank his coffee and scrolled through Twitter before the device in his hand pinged with a text from Emma- when he opened it she had given him the address and wrote  
‘his name is Prof Hidgens and hes a bit over the top so be prepared for that’  
Ted sighed as he simply left her on read before finishing off his drink and cramming it into the already overflowing compartment in the car door.

He entered the address onto the GPS on his phone and groaned when he saw this guys house was on the very outskirts of town- he pinched the bridge of his noise with a sigh before placing his phone onto its cheap shitty stand so he could actually see where he was going. With that he pulled out of his parking spot and began driving to this professor’s house.

The drive there went quicker than Ted thought it would- but then again that’s probably because Ted is a pessimist.  
Soon enough he was pulling up outside a huge (slightly intimidating) gate with a small intercom outside- so this guy was definitely rich.

Ted rolled down his window and pushed in the small white button on the machine. He waited a few seconds and was about to push it again before a voice came through from the other side-

“Sorry- Who is it?”

“I’m Ted- Emma Perkins’ friend- I’m here to drop of her...” he quickly looked back to the passenger seat as he opened the front of the her folder to jog his memory as to what subject this guy taught “Uh biology- her biology paper.” He looked back at the intercom as he waited for a response.

“Oh I see- well in that case I’ll let you in!”

“Thanks,” Ted responded before rolling up his window. Almost as soon as he did, the large gates in front of him squeaked open to give Ted a better look at the driveway behind them, he grimaced as he began slowly driving up it.

This looked like the beginning of every fuckin’ horror movie ever- he couldn’t imagine getting used to driving up a creepy ass driveway just to get to his house.

Besides that, when he got to the actually house it didn’t look too bad- well apart from the fact that it looked more like a castle than a normal home but he didn’t really give a shit.

Ted pulled up to the empty parking spaces in front of the house- which was strange because this Hidgens guy definitely would have to drive to get places right?  
He also definitely didn’t nearly crash into the building while parking- god he was still way too tired to be doing anything productive, hopefully the caffeine would kick in soon.

With a slam of the black car door, Ted was out of his beat up vehicle with Emma’s folder under his right arm. As he walked towards the front door it suddenly opened to reveal a tall man with grey hair- but apart from that you wouldn’t be able to tell his age by looking at him- he was wearing a black turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows along with a pair of beige trousers.

The man flashed Ted a quick smile as he approached.

“You must be Ted!” he spoke with a clap of his hands, his voice was deep- well deeper than Ted’s anyway.

“and you’re Professor Hidgens,” the brunette replied as he took the folder out from under his arm and held it in front of him.

“Ah- Emma’s paper,” The Professor took the folder from Ted’s hands as he flipped it open to make sure it was the right thing. “Splendid,” He said as he closed it and looked back up at Ted who was looking over the Professor shoulder into his house.

“You must make a lot of money off of teaching’” Ted looked back to the man with an impressed raise of his eyebrows- because honestly this place did seem pretty impressive. Plus he would rather talk about anything than stand in an awkward silence not knowing whether or not he should just leave. 

Hidgens chuckled as he looked behind him,  
“Well I suppose- I have been saving it up for awhile,”  
He then raised his eyebrows suddenly and looked back at Ted,  
“That reminds me,” he began as he too held Emma’s work under his arm.  
“I was going to ask Emma when she got here but.. seeing as she probably won’t be coming” he dramatically paused for about the 10th time in the conversation (which Ted found a bit tedious) before picking back up in his exaggerated tone, “would you mind helping me with something? It really is a two man job.. completely understandable if you don’t want to.” 

Man everyone just wanted Ted to do things for them today didn’t they? Eh fuck it- doing this is probably better than going home and having to listen to that fucking lawnmower.

“Sure- might as well,” he shrugged with a sigh, the professor’s face lit up as he moved to the side to let Ted past,

“It’s really just moving a desk from one room to the other but.. im not the strongest person in the world” the man chuckled as he closed the door shut behind Ted who once again shrugged.

“It’s no big deal- it’s not like I have anything better to do,” The brunette turned to look at the Professor, hoping that when he silent said ‘so where the fuck is this desk?’ he understood.

The Professor slipped past his guest and began practically skipping down the hallway as Ted slowly followed, half admiring the art and other shit on the walls but also being slightly freaked out by how much this place seemed to resemble an apocalypse shelter or some shit.

“Just through here,”

Ted looked up to see Hidgens disappear through a door off of the hallway which Ted shortly followed him into- once inside he didn’t fail to notice the clutter of various test tubes, microscopes and other science shit that Ted didn’t know the name of but knew that it looked pretty cool.  
He also noticed the medium sized wooden desk that looked a lot more fancy than Ted’s Ikea furniture back at his house.

“This is a lot of biology shit,” He masterfully said as he looked over the equipment once again before turning to face the Professor- who wasn’t holding the folder anymore. When did he put it down? Ted couldn’t really give less of a shit.

“Good observation,” the grey haired man replied with a light laugh as he rested his hands on one end of the desk, “but I’m.. moving it all out of this room to the bigger one down the hall,” 

Ted hummed in agreement as he moved to the opposite end of the desk and put his hands under it ready to lift.

“You sure it fits through the door?” He questioned as he looked down at the item of furniture.

“Positive.”

“And that there’s enough room to turn it in the hallway?”

“How do you think I got it in here Ted?”

Ted then remembered that this nice desk probably wasn’t a crappy flatpack one that the professor would have to assemble himself.

“Right.” He sighed before Hidgens counted down from 3 and they lifted the desk.  
Ted was pretty sure he was carrying all of the weight as he slowly backed out of the door and they both managed to carry it down the hall before turning it into the next room- it wasn’t perfect considering Ted managed to hit the desk against both door frames and also dropped the fucking thing on his foot when he placed it down resulting in a string of curse words that really weren’t that unusual to be heard from the brunette.

“Are you alright?” The professor asked quickly as Ted let out a long exhale.

“Yeah no im great,” He said as he looked down at the desk and back up to the taller man. “There’s still a lot of shit to move though right?” Ted tried to not focus on how bad his foot hurt and how he felt like he could collapse into a 24 hour long nap right now (really when the fuck was that caffeine gonna kick in?) and tried instead to focus on helping this guy out.

The professor waved his hands in front of him as his eyes widened,  
“Oh no no no- you don’t need to help move everything else.. I can do that on my own!,” he objected- but if there was one thing Ted was good at it was never backing down from shit he should probably just back down from.

“Nah it will be way easier with two people- might as well,”

“‘Might as well’ isn’t really the greatest motto to live by you know,” the Professor said as he shook his head with a light chuckle,

“Ok whatever- I’m offering to help just take it alright?” Ted grumbled rolling up his sleeves as he began to leave the room- he didn’t really noticed Hidgen’s features drop slightly at Ted’s harsh tone. Or at least if he did he ignored it.

The two slowly continued moving things in a rather awkward silence before Ted gave up and leant against the hallway wall with a heavy sigh.

“You’re done I presume?” The Professor said as he emerged from the new room and leant opposite from the brunette.

Ted pulled his phone from his back pocket and almost let it drop from his hand in surprise when he realised what the time was,

“What the fuck how is it midday already?” He stated, completely baffled and honestly kinda proud of himself that he spent time doing something actually fucking useful.

“Well time flies... and well, I suppose we have moved quite a lot,”

Ted hummed in response as he looked into the room to his left, there were still a few smaller things to move and a lot of boxes to dispose of. Shit that this guy could probably do himself.

“Do you like coffee?” Ted asked casually as he looked over at the taller man- who raised a brow at his sudden inquiry.

“Yes- black mainly,” he answered simply to which Ted nodded before standing up from the wall and beginning to head down the hallway.

“I’ll get you one from Beanies next week then,” he stated making Hidgens furrow his brows before quickly making his way to walk alongside Ted.

“Next week?” He questioned and the brunette rolled his eyes.

“My only free day- I’ll come help you move more shit or something. Beats sitting at home doing fuck all,” Ted shrugged as he reached the front door and took the handle in his hand.

“Right.. free day,”

Yeah that’s what he said. Ted pulled the door open before pausing and turning to the man behind him- who still had a rather surprised look on his face thanks to Ted’s previous statement.

“So like what’s your name anyway? Can hardly call you professor all the time,” Not like he was planning on visiting more than twice- he was just curious is all.

“Oh right! My names Henry,” he smiled down slightly at Ted who nodded.

“Cute name,” shit. The profe- well Henry’s eyebrows raised in shock after Ted’s compliment.  
“Uh y’know- for a.. guy.” Ted awkwardly finished his sentence with a cough as Henrys face filled with utter confusion.

“Well I’ll see you next week Henry,” Ted quickly shuffled out of the building- he couldn’t wait to leave after that bullshit he just pulled.

“Right of course- see you Ted,” Henry put one hand on the door readying to close it as he watch Ted march away to his car which he swiftly clambered into, but not before looking over his shoulder and giving Henry a wave.


End file.
